John Locke, Second Treatise (1689)

John Locke (1632-1704) differed from Thomas Hobbes on the question of monarchy.  Locke was a firm supporter of a parliamentary republic.  Yet that does not mean he did not side with the monarchy when it suited him.  During the Glorious Revolution, the reinstatement of the monarchy under William of Orange, Locke supported the restoration.  His medical studies were interrupted by political service to Whig politicians, but his involvement apparently forced him into exile in Holland during the reign of the Catholic king James II.  Because of the tenuous political situation his Two Treatises on Government were published in the 1689 after a delay of about ten years.  After the restoration in 1688 Locke returned home to take a government administrative office. 

Locke’s second treatise (The Second Treatise) is the better known and influential of the Two Treatises on Government.  His main target is political absolutism,of the use of unconstrained power by the state or its institutions.  No one can be above the law wrote Locke, even a supreme monarch. It is dangerous to leave the affairs of government to the arbitrary power of one man who is largely unaccountable for his actions.

Locke also differs from Hobbes in his discussion of the relation of humans to a state of nature.  For Locke, even in the state of nature, humans have a moral obligation to restrain themselves from imposing or encroaching upon others.  (Wolff, 2006, p. 25).   Yet Locke, was also anti-Semitic  and this must be kept in mind when one reads his tract, A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689).  

Locke’s establishment of the state relies upon a contractarian position that rejects the prevailing form of monarchy and absolutist rule.  Against this he seeks a social contract for the form of a representative government from which the rule of law, religious toleration, government by consent and a reliance and defense on markets and private property are ideological goals.  While the influence of Locke’s positions on the writers of the American constitution is commonly inferred, it is the French philosopher Montesqieu who was more directly acknowledged in The Federalist Papers for his proposal of a division of government funcitons.   


Suggested questions for consideration in your esssay:

1. Is the state of nature as peaceful as Locke suggests?
2. To what degree is Locke's reliance on property rights relevant or obsolete in today's political and economic realities?
3. How does Locke deal with the problem of an initial abundance of land turning into scarcity?  To what extent does scarcity lead to the threat of war or other crises?  Do you agree that in Oregon there is a scarcity of land, and why or why not?